Arguments on Models, Theory and Data

“Correlation supersedes causation, and science can advance even without coherent models, unified theories, or really any mechanistic explanation at all”.

‘All models are wrong, and increasingly you can succeed without them.’ Have we reached a time where all of our tool-sets are now made moot by vast clouds of information and strictly applied maths?”

http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/25/146250

The main article is here: http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/magazine/16-07/pb_theory . The comments even appear to be more interesting.

A reaction to this is here:http://miningdrugs.blogspot.com/2008/08/data-models-or-both.html

And Geoff sent me this link on same matter early this week:

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/OceanCooling/page1.php

It ends by saying this:

“Models are not perfect,” says Syd Levitus. “Data are not perfect. Theory isn’t perfect. We shouldn’t expect them to be. It’s the combination of models, data, and theory that lead to improvements in our science, in our understanding of phenomena.”

What is a model?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model

Another day

Its a few days since my last post…the weather has gotten worse than it had been.

But my reading has gone better…

Had a nice presentation on Hanseth et al’s paper, Developing Information Infrastructures

And a discussion with the head of the Global Infrastructure Group

… I will always remember “Research is sort of an apprenticeship; like learning to be a carpenter”

Those were words of wisdom, something I guess I didnt really factor out well earlier on. Now I see the practical consequences.

I would end this blog by showing a model of his paper I created using IHMC’s concept mapping software Cmaps

Conceptual model of an Information Infrastructure showing relationships between standardisation and flexibility.